Just One More Chapter

WOW! Okay. After many deep meditative breathes, and a few meditative brownies, I finally feel ready to put thought to page. I have to start off by confessing that I was a bit out of my depths having no idea of the story's plot and never having read a Warhammer novel before. If you haven't either then the most important things for you to know are that this read is deep, eloquently written, (grim)dark, foreboding and creepy as all hell. Images were put in my mind and, for better or worse, they feel like they have put down roots and are here to stay.

Peter Fehervari's unique voice is distinct and cerebral. The prose read beautifully. It was expertly crafted but also a tad verbose. I don't mean that in a harsh way, I actually really enjoyed the sentence structures, but the body of work felt very full of itself. Although I did find myself utilizing my ereader's dictionary function more frequently than normal, it didn't detract from the overall experience. Beautiful sentence form aside, trying to figure out what was precisely going on was a true mind trip and then the gruesome imagery kicked in... here is where another admission is due you, I must admit that I am usually quite squeamish with the Horror genre as a whole. Thankfully this book wasn't rife with gore but its nasty bits leaned towards the macabre... definitely disturbing. There were memorable moments when I found myself reaching for a light (or 3)... suffice it to say, my hubby wasn't a fan of my late night reading sessions with this book.

Anyway...

In this Psychological/Horror/SciFi mashup, there were 2 main POVs but there were also a handful of secondary cast members (primarily from the remains of Darstar Company) that gave us access to their thoughts without preamble or introduction... you just had to go with it. Each narrator was as unreliable as the last, a trait that kept things murky, exciting and tenuous at all times. I really enjoyed watching Sister Asenath's entries at the start of each chapter, showing her slowly deteriorating mental state. She was a kick ass female MC that knew her way around a weapon or two and was ultimately ruled by her devout faith... or was she?!? Another favorite of mine was Jonah Tythe (our other main MC... it's a thing... at least now it is). Our introduction to him in the prologue was visceral and later on he was one giant (numb) ball of conflicted bad-ass-ery. On the whole, the characters were all complex and beautifully- humanly flawed. I love a motley crew colored in shades of grey and boy oh boy were these folks living it up in all sorts of greyscale. The co-mingling character arcs that intersected were intense and juggled masterfully. It was impressive how Peter Fehervari weaved each character's juxtaposed strings into a robust, vivid, cohesive tapestry. In my mind, Fehervari is the new master of Wrongness and Dread, he built those two up to a nail biting, tachycardia inducing, crescendo and didn't let up.

Overall:

I am amazed how much I enjoyed my mind being screwed with in a terror inducing manor. Requiem Infernal was a weird, twisty, wordy mind fuck and I mean that with as much reverence as possible.

If you:

- like your world building exquisitely detailed, unapologetically disturbing and lustrously portrayed.

- like your characters developed eloquently, and ambivalent... neither black nor white nor simply Good or Evil.

- like sentences so resplendent that you put the book aside to relish in their mastery.

- like not knowing where in the hell each character and plot devise is taking you.

- like your Psychological Horror genre with a side of SciFi.

If you answered YES to one or more of the criteria I listed above then....

                                           THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU!!

~ Enjoy (I did)

*** I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review ***